update: how should I balance workplace red flags vs. the necessity to get a job?

by Alison Green on July 31, 2024

Remember the letter-writer wondering about how to balance workplace red flags vs. the need to get a job? Here’s the update.

Thank you so much for your thorough reply! I really appreciate it. Those are great insights, especially what you said about building up how to handle it well if I do end up in a bad workplace, rather than being paralyzed by the fear of that happening. Also what you (and multiple commenters) said about what matters most to me and what I personally can put up with. Thanks a ton for taking the time and thought to write out an answer to my question. You’ve given me good stuff to chew on.

So, here’s a cool thing: I actually got the library job. Finished out my fourth day working there today! I haven’t heard back from the cabin business people since I initially got in touch with them again once I moved here; but my application to the library job went through the hoops, I got an interview, and then a couple days later I got a call with a formal offer of employment!

I’m relieved to just have a job, but also, I’m relieved it ended up being this job. It bugs me a little bit that I won’t know for sure what it would be like working at the other place (unless I get hired there at some other time). But with this library job — besides it just being cool and something I know I’ll enjoy from a skills/tasks standpoint — I’ve been so pleasantly delighted with the hiring process and everything so far. They’ve been far and away the most communicative, on top of things, and considerate toward the applicants out of any other places I’ve applied at or asked about hiring. I’ve asked multiple library staff members what they like about working here, and it’s been really positive. A recurring theme is about how collaborative / empathetic / flexible / understanding the management and staff are. And I’m getting to see it myself now. I’ve only been there a few days, but I can smell high stress and control from a long distance due to other experiences. I feel very good about this, which is huge. Huge to not have a million doubts and cynical expectations overshadowing my mindset going into this job. It’s great.

I don’t know what it was that got me the job; could’ve been any one of resume, cover letter, interview, or references called. I wish I knew. But that was the first official interview I’d ever had, and the first official cover letter I’d ever submitted. I was feverishly reading tips on your website about interviews and cover letters (and all the helpful examples you had!) in the few days between when I found your website and when I submitted my application, so hopefully that contributed to the quality of my cover letter, and interview later. But I really don’t know what it was!

Thank you again for answering my question! I’ve heard people on two different sides of that kind of dilemma: some who basically say, “Work is work and you can’t be picky. Doesn’t matter if you don’t like it; it’s unrealistic idealism to expect to work (or hold out for) a job you love” and others who say, “No way should you ever settle for a job less than a job you love! You can and should absolutely enjoy your job and not be in an environment that’s bad for you.” I can see the validity of both of those, though I admit the first one seems more realistic to my cynical mind. I would love to know if the second were true in real life.

But anyway, I think you have a pretty balanced perspective in your reply, and I’m thankful for that.

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{ 73 comments }

{ 73 comments… read them below }

  1. Fluffy Fish*

    “Work is work and you can’t be picky. Doesn’t matter if you don’t like it; it’s unrealistic idealism to expect to work (or hold out for) a job you love” and others who say, “No way should you ever settle for a job less than a job you love! You can and should absolutely enjoy your job and not be in an environment that’s bad for you.”

    OP I think it mostly lies in the middle for most people. Usually it’s not a dream job but it’s more or less enjoyable and certainly not toxic or horrible. Dream jobs do happen and its great if you find one, but most of us are all working so we can do what we love outside of work.

    So happy you found something you love.

    1. Sloanicota*

      There’s also been different seasons of my life. There were times when I just needed to keep a job, even if I hated it, while I tried to get myself into a stronger position where I could pursue something that suited me better. That’s okay. If we’re lucky, careers are long and there are many phases along the way.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        VERY much so. I started adult life as a young single mom. What work I did mattered so much less than money, leave, hours, security. Where I landed was local government. And it’s been very good to me overall – but it is not even close to anything I would want to do.

        And thats ok.

        I’ll be eligible for retirement soon (young since i started young) and for the first time in my working life I’m faced with figuring out what I WANT to do. And tbh I have no idea. There’s also something to be said for all the years I spent becoming an expert in my field – that’s got value – do I give that up? Who knows.

        1. Donn*

          Congratulations, Fluffy Fish!

          I’m in the final 5-year stretch to retirement, and am also starting to think about what I WANT to do. I’m not sure I can fill all my time with only hobbies and volunteer work.

          I do know that if I continue working to some degree in retirement, I don’t want it to be in my current field. Not at all.

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            Back at you!

            UGh the degree thing too. Is it tempting? Yes. But is it worth the $$$ and time? For now leaning towards no.

    2. Keyboard Cowboy*

      Agreed, I think it’s very privileged to say that you should never “settle” for a job you don’t “love” – turns out we need money in order to not starve and we need a job to get money. But if you have the ability and safety to do so, it’s absolutely worth finding a job that has at least one aspect you love (could be your coworkers! could be your walking commute through the public gardens! could even be the work itself!) and few or no aspects that are harmful to you. That’s different than “a job you love” but for a ton of people (maybe even most?) it is enough, no?

      1. MassMatt*

        I think it’s also worth noting that even supposed dream jobs entail a lot of work that is less than thrilling.

        Think of a dream job–Professional athlete? Tons of time practicing, injuries, career could end at any time. Actor? Lots of rehearsal, many retakes, lots of down time between projects, having to promote promote promote. Any dream job has its drawbacks, if you don’t know what they are maybe you don’t know the job as well as you think you do and you’re only focusing on the glamor aspects.

        I’ve had quite a few jobs I’ve hated, especially when I was younger, and many I was pretty indifferent to but could see some positives. I like my current career, but yes, it’s a job, there are aspects I don’t like but overall it brings me satisfaction along with the income.

        1. B*

          Yes, I have rarely encountered anyone who speaks of “dream jobs” after they have actually been in the workforce more than 5 years or so. Jobs are jobs; some are better than others, and some might even let you advance an important cause or engage in a passion. But they’re pretty much all some mixture of good and bad, and by definition they compel you to do stuff you would prefer not to do sometimes. For most people, the task is to find the best mix for you. Is that settling? I guess so, though that’s a needlessly pejorative term for it, in the same way marrying someone who has bad breath in the morning is settling. If you aren’t settling for something, then you’re going to be sitting on the sidelines your whole life missing out on a whole lot.

        2. Donn*

          Yes. I’m in the legal field, and once worked on something for a celebrity and their wildly successful product. Think of Alberto “Beto” Perez, the creator of Zumba dance.

          I got to see the celebrity’s travel itineraries and arrangements for their many promotional appearances. They were wildly successful, but man did they work for every bit of it!

        3. Emmy Voter*

          Right! I’m a TV Writer and I know I’m fortunate to have what has been my Dream Job since I was a teen, but it’s not a dream day to day! Super long hours, job insecurity, sometimes you work for abusive assholes or actual sex pests. And you can’t even check out and phone it in because you need your emotions on the surface to get the job done.

          They say love and hate are next to each other, I think dream jobs come with heightened negativity too. Sometimes I dream of having a job I just don’t care about!

      2. PersonWhoseLetterThisWas*

        For sure, that makes sense. And yes, agreed: I think a decently pleasant job that isn’t toxic or harmful counts for me as a win.

    3. Mairead*

      Yeah, I don’t really believe that any job will be a ‘love every minute of every day’ situation. But nobody wants to be in a situation of hating every minute either. I’m ok as long as the overall positive/negative balance is on the + side. And getting paid enough $ to keep a roof over my head and food on the table is a big +

    4. ferrina*

      Exactly this. A lot of it depends on context- where you are in your career, what your finances look like, what the current economic system/hiring trends look like, what you can/want to be flexible on and what you can’t, what your back up options are (there’s a big difference between the back-up plan of “stay at my current mediocre job” and “continue to be unemployed, use the last of my savings on groceries next week, and probably be evicted in a couple months”).

      The middle ground is where most of us are at, and there’s a lot of nuances there.

    5. Le Sigh*

      Agreed. I feel like when I was young, I was always getting conflicting messages, sometimes from the same people. “Do what you love! Never settle!” but also “Why are you complaining about abusive boss/no sick time/benefits cuts/someone harassing you/insane workloads? You can’t just quit a job, a job is a job, you made a commitment!” Of course, sometimes you really cannot afford to picky, but often there’s a middle ground folks.

    6. Beth*

      Agreed. I don’t think the two statements you’re seeing are opposites, OP! One is saying that you can’t expect absolute perfection; the other is saying that you shouldn’t accept absolute toxicity. But there’s a big space in between those two, and most of us live in the in-betweens.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Exactly.

        Don’t settle for a job that’s bad for you – Morally, financially, physically, emotionally, mentally If you have to work one for financial reasons, keep thinking about ways to get out as soon as possible.

        Don’t expect perfection from your job – Very, very few of us love *every* minute of our job, feel deeply fulfilled by it, and would rather be working than going on vacation. That’s a good thing, since it means we can hold firm on things like pay, benefits, and work-life balance.

      2. PersonWhoseLetterThisWas*

        Mm, that makes sense. It’s not an all-or-nothing matter, again. ;P Thank you!

    7. shrambo*

      Agree. Sometimes you’re in a situation where you can’t afford to do anything but just put up with it. Sometimes you have the means to turn down subpar opportunities and wait for better options. What people are able to do depends on their luck and circumstances.

    8. Good Lord Ratty*

      This is it exactly. Most of us won’t actually get our dream job and many won’t be able to do anything that could actually be described as a ~passion~ (at least not if we want to make a living wage and/or get benefits), but doing a job you like well enough for adequate compensation in a decent work environment is not too much to ask for!

    9. Lady Danbury*

      I firmly believe that I have no dream job because I do not dream of labor (my dreams tend to includes beaches and cocktails). If I’m doing work that I enjoy in an environment that I enjoy, that’s pretty much my workplace ideal.

      1. allathian*

        Absolutely. I’m completely flummoxed by people who can’t imagine what they’ll do when they retire. If I could lie on the couch (interspersed with some gentle exercise to ensure I don’t petrify in place), watch TV and read all day most days, with an occasional visit with friends, a not-too strenuous trip to a new location once or twice a year with my husband and with the occasional visit from my then-adult son, hang out with my friends once or twice a month with the occasional trip to the movies or a restaurant, I’d be perfectly content. That’s what I do during my long vacations, which I call practicing for retirement. The only difference is that I’m the parent of a teenager, which I won’t be when I retire in about 15 years’ time. By then, I hope and expect that our son has become financially independent, as he’ll be in his late 20s or early 30s when I retire.

        Until then, working in an organization with a great culture that lets me work fairly autonomously and trusts that I get my work done to standard without constant supervision, with by US standards very generous PTO policies, a generous WFH policy, zero tolerance for harassment and workplace bullying, and at least in my team, a great boss and professional, helpful, and friendly teammates. I get enough positive feedback to know that others value the work I’m doing and enough constructive feedback to improve when necessary. Even when I occasionally get constructive feedback on my work, I never feel judged as a person. Reading this blog has made me aware of how extremely privileged I am, and I freely acknowledge that.

    10. Office Plant Queen*

      I remember when I was looking for a job after finishing school and I was talking about wanting to find a job I enjoyed, and I kept getting the former from my family. Which was really frustrating! It’s not like I was saying that I wanted a job I was passionate about or that I loved (despite how much school tried to instill that belief in us). I was just talking about finding a job where I can grow and learn and where my coworkers are friendly, because I consider those things to be necessary for me to not hate my job. And if I’m spending a third of my time there, I really don’t want to dread being at work

      1. Boof*

        I suspect your family was just anxious/focused on getting to “launch” since they (presumably) are seeing the financial side and not so much the day to day quality of life side

    11. Banana Pyjamas*

      In general a job is a job and you can’t be picky, and an unhealthy environment should be the primary exception to that rule. However, the calculus becomes more complicated as you progress through your career and as you enter different phases of life.

      Due to a contacted local market with low wages, commuting, and childcare I would currently make more selling plasma than working full time.

    12. Inkognyto*

      I loved my job for like 5 or so years.

      After that, a cool new place is like, oh new surroundings, new people.
      I’ve been doing this for 2 decades plus.
      I produce the results the company wants, company gives the pay.
      I go home and have fun, they get stay in business.

  2. Cmdrshprd*

    ““No way should you ever settle for a job less than a job you love! You can and should absolutely enjoy your job and not be in an environment that’s bad for you.””

    Personally for me while I like the idea, I don’t think it is 100% practical. I think it is okay to search/hope for that, but also think at some point if you can’t find it you might have to lower your expectations.

    Like of you have been out of a job for 6+ months (assuming your savings/ability to support yourself are running out) or one/two years you have to lower your expectations, it does not mean you have to take a job you know is a dumpster fire, but you take a job that may not be your dream job, but you can tolerate for a few years while you build savings and can start looking for your dream job while employed.

    A more general thing about dream jobs, is that. a dream job can change as you grow/change as a person.

    A dream job you get in your early/mid 20s maybe not be a dream job in your 30/40s+. So dream jobs can also change, and that’s okay to say. this was my dream job 5/10 years ago, but it no longer is.

    1. Dawn*

      Hah, isn’t that the truth. I remember thinking that my dream job when I was in my early 20s was in electronics retail. Working in a COMPUTER STORE all day? Sign me up!

      Seven years of electronics retail has subsequently cured me of that delusion.

      It’s not the work, it’s the customers, and the sales pressure, and the office politics…..

      1. MigraineMonth*

        You *absolutely* cannot tell if a job is going to be a dream job or not until you’re working it. Jobs with high-prestige companies or professions that inspire vocational awe tend to be crappier, since there’s a long line of people who would happily do your job for longer hours and less pay.

        My “dream jobs” with great pay and benefits burned me out so badly that I quit with nothing lined up and applied to work at a doggie daycare center. My current “boring” job has amazing work-life balance, very little stress, and has made me actually enjoy working again.

        1. Dawn*

          I’m studying to be a horticulturist. My next step in my career is to spend all day in a garden haha. I emphatically feel you on the doggy day care.

          Sometimes these ‘menial’ tasks can be the most rewarding and enjoyable work.

    2. rrr*

      This is SUCH a good point! I’m at a point where my current job, which was a dream job when I got it, no longer fits with my current life needs. And the job I’m about to start is a dream job in totally different ways (which I would have scoffed at earlier in my career – but right now a dream job is one that pays enough, treats me well, and gives me enough time to have hobbies, exercise, and most importantly be a more present parent and partner).

  3. ThatGirl*

    “I don’t know what it was that got me the job” – it was probably an accumulation of many things! Your resume, a positive interview, good references – there’s rarely ONE thing that gets a person an offer; it’s usually adding up multiple things. Otherwise companies would just do that one thing.

    Congratulations! :)

    1. MigraineMonth*

      You can also try asking! Don’t necessarily expect an answer (or a fully honest one if the answer is “there was only one other candidate and he pooped in the potted fern on the way out”), but it’s worth a try.

      1. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon*

        Seconding this! OP, you can ask. That information could be very useful to you right now in understanding exactly what they want for this job, and also in the future when you apply to other jobs.

  4. Mid*

    As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that I personally don’t really want a job I love, in the “all-consuming passion for the work” way. I want jobs that pay me well, treat me fairly, and the work isn’t horrible to complete. Some growth and development is nice too, and there are certain companies in my industry I will never work for because of ethical concerns, and I don’t want to be making the world a worse place with my work.

    But I also want jobs that I don’t take home with me, mentally or emotionally, and enable me to have free time to spend on the things and people I genuinely love. I’ve gone from a Leslie Knope to a Jerry, and I think that’s best for me at this point in my career and life.

    1. Fluffy Fish*

      This is important and I think it’s where a lot of people end up with age and experience.

    2. Aphrodite*

      I agree so strongly with this. I now have 20 years into (various levels of) an administrative assistant position in a community college. So many things have come and gone and changed. There is toxicity. There are also terrible co-workers and ones I like, respect and love knowing. But the one thing that is, actually has become, so important to me is that it is a relatively boring job with some interesting work, that doesn’t get me caught up in the drama anymore, doesn’t go home with me, doesn’t require more than 40 hours (as long I keep my boundaries intact). It is a “do this work and go home” job. And I’ll take that any day over a promotion into management or a rah-rah-rah position. Just give me the fabulous benefits, the comfortable salary, the steady hours and the rather boring and mundane work that doesn’t spill over into my real life. I didn’t appreciate this “boredom” when I was younger but I sure do appreciate the incredible wonderfulness of it now.

      1. rrr*

        THE DREAM. I’m moving into an admin assistant role for all the reasons you mentioned (plus I’ll get to walk/bike to work instead of a 40-minute drive), and I can’t wait!

    3. rrr*

      YUP, see my comment above – I’m right there with you, and now look back in mild horror at the time when I thought Leslie Knope was an aspirational figure!

    4. Good Lord Ratty*

      This is where I’ve ended up, too. I really really wanted to work in [passion field], but I could never get a job that actually paid me enough to live while only working one job at a time, so I eventually went into the public service (this was itself a difficult process, but worth it). Now I leave work behind when I’m not on the clock, and I am actually making a living. The pay isn’t amazing, but it’s far better than I was getting before, both in the private sector, non-profits, and universities.

    5. Jen*

      After a couple of jobs in his field, my husband realized he just wants a 40-hour-per-week job that he doesn’t have to think about, that has a decent wage, benefits, and vacation, so he can come home and do things he actually enjoys. Nothing wrong with that!

      (Actually he would REALLY like to not work at all but my job can’t keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed.)

    7. Peanut Hamper*

      I wish I could save comments (a la Reddit style) because this is it. When I was young, I was passionate about work; now I just want to pay the bills and then do my own thing. Work is no longer how I define myself. And honestly, it never should have been how I defined myself.

    8. allathian*

      That’s how I feel, too. The only difference is that I never had a “passion career” phase. Both my parents were scientists who spent their entire careers until retirement in academia. My sister followed in their footsteps, but I knew from a very early age that I didn’t want to live with the insecurity that comes from living on grant money. We were never poor enough to live from paycheck to paycheck, but things could be tense at home when my parents were waiting to hear about the next grant. Sure, my mom switched to working as a scientist for a government agency when my sister and I were teenagers, but her career progression was hampered by not having a Ph.D. My sister followed in her footsteps and has worked for the same agency most of her career, but because she has a Ph.D., she advanced past our mom’s retirement position in her early 40s. Their specialization’s actually so small that my mom was my sister’s intern supervisor way back when! My sister’s a very career-oriented, ambitious, and childfree academic, very different from me as a person. But even she’s learned to value time off work in the last decade or so, and she’ll be 50 this year.

      When it was just me, my sister, and our parents, our Sunday dinner conversations sometimes made me feel left out when they’d talk shop. Thankfully now that we’re older and our holiday dinners include my husband, our son, and my in-laws, they have more things to talk about, especially since both my parents retired more than 10 years ago.

  5. ferrina*

    OP, thank you so much for this update! Congrats on the library job! I’m so happy to hear that you got the job and it’s going really well!!

    If you’re up for it, I’d love another update in the winter update season when you get more settled in. I’m really hoping that it continues to be a great place for you!

  6. JHunz*

    Having the option of turning down a job in hopes of a better fit is a privilege not everyone has at all times, and many people don’t have at all.
    Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to observe how my workplace satisfaction and stress levels affect the overall happiness of my life. The year and a half I was working at a bad fit with high stress levels were definitely a pretty low point, and I strongly believe that I will never move to another job without high confidence that it’s a great fit for me.
    But at the beginning of my career, where I had practically no savings and needed a way to keep a roof over my head? I absolutely took something that was not ideal for me, and while it ended up working out quite well what was important was that I was getting a paycheck. You should hold out for a good position for yourself to the best of your abilities at the time, but never feel bad for not being able to wait for the perfect thing to come along. There aren’t that many perfect things out there.

  7. Festively Dressed Earl*

    1. Congratulations OP!
    2. I think the truth lies somewhere in between the extremes. Not all of us are going to love or enjoy our jobs all the time, but as long as you can pay your bills, it’s better to take a job in a non-toxic environment with a lower salary than to take a higher-paying job that could negatively impact your mental health.
    3. If you’re really curious about ‘what might have been’ at the cabin job, apply for some entry-level part time seasonal work there if you get the chance, something where you only have 10 hours a week in the evenings or weekends. It’d undoubtedly be different than the job you were initially interested in, but you’d know whether the bad word-of-mouth truly concealed a beehive.

    1. PersonWhoseLetterThisWas*

      1. Thank you!
      2. Gotcha. That does make sense.
      3. Mm, yeah, that could be interesting!

  8. Dawn*

    “I don’t know what it was that got me the job; I really don’t know what it was that got me the job!”

    What it was is that you were the best candidate. There’s no magic-bullet answer of “this is what did it” – you were the best candidate. Don’t sell yourself short; you got this job because you deserved it and earned it.

  9. Buffalo*

    Wow! I told you in the comments of your first letter that you’d probably need a hundred leads to get one job – turns out I was off by 99 or so. Congratulations and best wishes!

  10. badger*

    Someone once told me something that’s always stuck with me: your first job is probably not going to be your last job.

    I agree with other commenters that it’s usually somewhere in the middle between “work is work, don’t be picky” and “hold out for dream job.” But I also think it’s important to recognize that your priorities may change throughout your life, and a dream job at 25 may not be a dream job at 35 or 45.

  11. Carol the happy*

    The advice to not take a job you don’t 100% love is crazy, especially when you’re young and new in your field.

    Here’s why.
    1) They largely don’t exist.
    2) They depend on other people being intelligent, mature, and professional- in short, The Stepford Co.
    3) Jobs like that don’t teach you how to navigate around “Betty Bananapants”.
    4) If you do find one, every other job will feel like a poor comparison. You might find yourself going from job to job looking for The Lost Perfection, and not focusing on building your career.
    (I went back to an old job after a move back- it didn’t look “right” because Hawkeye and Trapper were gone, replaced by 3 calm professionals who
    weren’t cute, funny- the wacky team was- wrong. ish.
    Radar had been caught selling drugs, and Hot Lips came out (and sold Avon from the breakroom.) The fresh cameraderie was gone, and replaced with people who were “wrong” for the parts. I’d handle it much better today, but young me struggled with actually grieving for the past.

    When my kids were in their first jobs, I always hoped that they’d get to use their social and emotional skills with a few challenging people- like my son’s manager at a fast food place. They weren’t allowed to accept $50 bills without manager approval- one kid did, the manager took the bill, lunch rush started and everybody had to scramble- and the $50 went missing.
    That kid was fired on the spot, and at the end of his shift, my son heard commotion in the breakroom. They had found the $50- stuck to the bottom of the manager’s shoe with something sticky. The manager had gone on break, sat down with his leg on his knee, and someone pointed at the sole. My son said that the money was perfectly in line and centered so it didn’t show at all.
    The manager had apologized to everyone all around.
    The fired kid was asked to come back, but he settled for a reference, and a week’s pay. Within a day he had a job with Burger Royalty down the road.
    A perfect job wouldn’t really be perfect, of course, it’s just that it’s like your first love, starlight and violins.

    Love your library- I loved mine even though Betty Bananapants was in charge of the Reference Desk Domain!

    1. Fluffy Fish*

      yes so important – so very much about what makes work good or bad is not at all about the work and largely about other people which is entirely 100 percent not in your control.

      1. allathian*

        Yes, this. Working with other people can be either the best part of a job, or the worst part.

  12. Sparkles McFadden*

    It sounds as if you’ve landed in a great place, LW. Work you enjoy doing in a place with supportive management is a good place to be. Wishing you all the best.

  13. Sally Forth*

    My last job before retirement was at a large Canadian library. I was blown away by the professionalism of the women with whom I worked. If I hadn’t been ending my career, I would have loved to have had any of them as my mentor.
    As the OP said about their new job, the collaboration and empathy made it a fabulous place to work.

  14. Leenie*

    The first letter brings back memories. At the dawn of time (or the mid-1990’s, but who’s counting?), I sent a letter to a city employee that included the line “enclosed is your floppy dick”. To make the story more thoroughly 1990’s, I found out about the error when one of the engineers in my office came running up to the fax machine because another city employee called him in hysterics, didn’t tell him what the error was, but told him he was going to fax over the offending document so he could experience it himself.

    I didn’t get in any trouble. I did remove that word from my Word (actually, it might have been WordPerfect) dictionary, much like I had (preemptively) removed “pubic”.

    1. Leenie*

      Gah! How did I wind up in the wrong column, embarrassingly telling a misplacing a story about how I embarrassed myself?

  15. Mrs. Hawiggins*

    I was just recently laid off, and yes, I actually turned down a job just last week. I hated to do it, but when I say I knew it was bad the minute I got to the place I would not be fibbing. I really should have turned around and called it off.

    The job sounded like frying pan/fire from my former employer, and the environment itself posed a physical safety issue. Old me might have overlooked all that for $ sake. I won’t do that now.

    When you get to the office and they say, “Oh good the elevator’s working today,” before saying “Oh you must be Ms. Hawiggins,” I mean…

  16. DJ Abbott*

    OP, you were looking at a job that’s really good and a job that sounded like it might be OK, at best, on a good day. You had the luck to get the good one. It sounds like you had a little bit of a crush on the other one, and I think it would be best for you to put that crush behind you and go with a good one. Put it out of your mind and move forward, and don’t be tempted to quit a good job to go work at that one. If you make an effort to put it out of your mind and move forward, in a few months you will forget about it. If anything reminds you of it you’ll be like, “huh, I used to think that was so great, and I was wrong.”

    1. PersonWhoseLetterThisWas*

      That makes sense. Duly noted. ;) Thank you! I don’t even think much about the other one now because I can tell this one is a good one, and I don’t want to lose it.

  17. PDB*

    Remember the old saying, “Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life?” That’s me. I ditched the family business to which I was the Crown Prince to be a sound mixer and recording engineer: I made record, TV and movie sound. This required an odd combo of creative and technical skill that for some reason I was suited to. This is not to say that there weren’t days I rued my life but, really, I loved going to work.

    1. allathian*

      You were one of the very lucky ones. For most people, their work life is never going to be like that and it’s unrealistic to expect it to be like that.

      That said, for many people turning a passion project into work that you have to do even when you don’t feel like it spoils all the fun.

      That said, people’s levels of emotional engagement vary by a very wide margin. I’ve enjoyed some parts of all of my jobs, but I’ve never been passionate about any of them. I’ve never been passionate about any of my hobbies, either, come to think of it.

  18. Throwaway Account*

    Congratulations OP and welcome to the world of libraries!

    I find myself giving this advice a lot: once you get settled and feel you can do the job they hired you to do (maybe 6 months in?), take the time to really think about the tasks you want to learn to do. What skills do you want to try or that you think might help you get your next job?

    You can do projects that help the library AND that help you at the same time. Do things that will help you advance.

    One thing I would suggest is to see if your library participates in local, regional, state, or national library professional associations. Those can connect you to a much wider network of people to learn from!

    Best to you!

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